The Weekly Weird - 2016-04-22

Once again, no weird last week because I found myself inexplicably transported to Seattle. Weird.

• Behold nature's glory as you watch these elegant beasts ... plumment to the ground at terminal velocity.
• Is bitcoin becoming more stable than gold?. From the WSJ no less.
• I'm highly suspicious of this press release which looks a bit too much like an ARG promotion for the next Deus Ex but: First gene thereapy successful against human aging.
• Not only was Microsoft's underwater data center apparently not an April Fools' joke but they're building a bigger one!
• Watching the mainstream media discover NY4 is vaguely entertaining. I especially like the breathless recounting of the security procedures.
• Magic leap looks kind of neat but somehow I expect it'll all end in tears.
• I find this absolutely fascinating: maps you read with your fingers, especially useful when it's really freaking cold and you're wearing mittens. Similar stuff from Polynesia and a really fascinating HN thread where you can learn to navigate with your testicles.
• The world needed another version control system. Written in Rust. That implements DARCS' patch semantics. And has a terrible name: Pijul.
• Sticking with Rust, one thing I'm really enjoying about its popularity is that it seems to be attracting a good number of small, careful-sounding implementations of well-chosen algorithms. For example Shamir's Secret Sharing, and the Noise protocol framework.
• Writing Varnish vmods in Rust.
• Ok, that's actually fairly neat: paid energy transfer using Ethereum. I'd like a lot more detail on this, namely how the heck it actually works.
• Circuits! Javascript!
• ...but do they spontaneously self-assemble when exposed to a fricking Tesla coil?
• Neat, a 3D-printed save icon!
• Also, I guess Reddit's warrant canary died. Besides bringing attention to the problem it's unclear what exactly one can do with this information. I do absolutely adore the cleverness behind a yearly report instead of a single timeless canary and wonder if we'll ever see the old language return.
• Do you want to read more about the Big Eve War? Of course you do!
• <3 jwz